Thousands of people from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
participated on the third day of the Left parties dharna on 1st August.
The leaders of the Left parties congratulated the people who had come to
participate in the dharna travelling hundreds of kilometres and braving
many odds. They highlighted the fact that the thousands sitting in
dharna in Delhi are joined by thousands more who are protesting in
various parts of the country. They criticised the government for its
failure to address the agrarian distress and its faulty agricultural
policies.
Addressing the gathering, the leaders said, the government, instead
of supporting the peasants by announcing remunerative support prices, is
leaving them to the vagaries of market. Moreover, it is encouraging the
cultivation of commercial crops for export, rather than cultivation of
food grains. As a result, the production of food grains in the country
has declined and this together with the speculative activities like
forward trading is contributing to the rise in the prices of food grains
and other essential commodities. This is leading to a situation where
even the producers of food grains too are unable to buy them from the
market. They demanded the government to immediately address the concerns
for storage of food grains. Instead of letting the food grains to rot,
the government should take steps to distribute them through the PDS by
strengthening it.
S. Ramachandran Pillai, Polit Bureau member of the CPI (M), D. Raja,
National Secretary of CPI and Member of Parliament, Amarjeet Kaur,
National Secretary of CPI, Basudeb Acharia, Member of Parliament and
Leader of the CPI (M) in Lok Sabha, Subhashini Ali, Central Committee
member, CPI (M), Ashok Ghosh of RSP, Charanjeet Singh of AIFB addressed
the protesters along with the state leaders of the four Left parties.
Leaders of various mass organisations: AIDWA, AISF, DYFI and SFI too
addressed the dharna. Jan Natya Manch performed a play highlighting the
impact of price rise on the common people.
